CALEA deadline arrives: US VoIP, broadband must be wiretap-friendly

All broadband operators and VoIP providers?along with some universities and …

Today is the day that CALEA comes to a broadband provider or university near you.

CALEA, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, has been growing in scope since it was first passed in 1994. The initial bill was designed to make it easier for prosecutors and federal agents to tap telephones, but in 2004 the FCC extended CALEA to include broadband providers and VoIP companies. Universities also fell under the "broadband provider" rubric, and all affected groups had to go to the expense of making their systems work with the government's wiretapping needs.

Today was the deadline for that compliance, as Wired's Threat Level blog points out. Universities have been especially vocal in their opposition to CALEA, arguing that it will prove incredibly expensive to install, monitor, and maintain all the required gear and software. In an effort to make it easier and cheaper, the federal government has allowed schools to route all of their traffic through a Trusted Third Party who will take care of all the monitoring issues.

The government sees this as a mere extension of its existing wiretap authority to a new medium. Criminals shouldn't get a free pass, so the argument goes, simply because they're smart enough to switch to Skype.

The feds haven't yet moved into electronic surveillance in a big way, though that may change now that it's easier to implement. In 2005, for instance, the feds only requested 625 wiretaps (state prosecutors and police departments actually requested more than the feds), and only 23 of these were for electronic communications. In 2006, phones again accounted for the vast majority of taps, with the government going after them 96 percent of the time. Electronic surveillance remained minuscule.

Judicial oversight of the taps remains in place, and a judge is still required to sign off on every wiretap, though this may come as cold comfort to those opposed to the CALEA expansion; in 2006, no judge turned down a wiretap request.